I'd put abit of nuance in it if I were Jo, but can't really say he is wrong. The umpires sometimes seem in awe of the top 4. Ofcourse they don't always favor them, but I'd bet alot of money on it happening more often than chance would suggest. Personally I get the feeling the umpires are making alot of mistakes this year anyways, don't know if that is true or not though.

hyperren

10-09-2012 04:18 PM

Re: Tsonga: Referees always favor top 4

...it's starting to look like Tsonga is looking at every possible excuse for why he's not doing any better than Top 5 or 6 (I remember that "other players are playing more smaller tournaments" excuse a couple of months back). Any excuse apart from admitting he's not playing well enough or consistently enough to get the points or the wins.

Mark Lenders

10-09-2012 04:24 PM

Re: Tsonga: Referees always favor top 4

Tsonga is 100% correct, but then again everyone knows that bar extreme tards of those 4 players, it's hardly breaking news. It has been going on at least since 2008, and not only with official decisions (but scheduling and more stuff).

A more interesting bit of his interview is when he says Djokovic is the only player against whom he feels like he needs to be perfect to win big points.

Adri89

10-09-2012 04:26 PM

Re: Tsonga: Referees always favor top 4

Tsonga is just angry about a call during the TB of the Pekin's final.
He said that against Djokovic "his level isn't good enough" to beat him.
I don't think it is an excuse for him, just he doesn't like to lose, and you just can understand this behaviour from champions. Those guys want to be the best, and it's hard to acknowledge that you find better than you.

Tsonga seems right about one point though : if an influent player doesn't like an umpire, it's harder for his career, to be in the big matchs.

he had complained about the linecalls, that he had to challenge a lot and he was right most of the time and that the umpire (Damian Steiner) never overruled, he said that having this permanent doubt about the bad calls and whether he had to challenge or not had disturbed his concentration.

He had said that except if the case was obvious, the umpire would never overrule against Nadal, contrary to what he would do against another player, because, and that's the important part, if Nadal didn't like the umpire, the umpire would never umpire big matches again .

This time, it's about the decision in the tiebreak, at 3-3 I think, when there was a bad call on a Djokovic's first serve, Djokovic's challenge was good and Lahyani said that Tsonga could not have brought the ball back whereas he had touched it. Tsonga complained a lot about it to Lahyani saying that of course he had been disturbed by the call and he could have brought the ball back, and he hadn't really accepted Lahayni's decision even when he went back to play (Djokovic said that he understood Jo on that case by the way but he said rightly that it was hard to judge anyway and in the end it was the umpire's decision).

And once again, he says that if it had not been against a top-4, Lahyani would not have taken that decision.

But I have to say that I've already seen Lahyani take that kind of decision several times whereas it was not clear in my eyes.

I think, and that's my main concern, that there are clearly different judging ways from the umpires in such cases to judge "what would have happened without the bad call" : most often on service points, the umpires judge that the player could not have brought the ball back anyway, while during rallies, they judge the opposite.

My personal main concern is rather that during the "rally points", the umpires usually have the point replayed rather than considering that the bad call didn't change the outcome of the point anyway.

That said, when Tsonga says that if a top-4 doesn't like an umpire, the umpire will be black-outed, I think there are good reasons to think this way and you can understand why he thinks that, when you consider how different are judged time wasting especially depending on whether it's Nadal on one case, lower-ranked players on the other case, and also when you consider how most important decisions in the ATP seem to be orientated by top-players. I think it's clearly a problem that the ATP and the umpires let this opinion emerge because of the obvious "double system" regarding time wasting. I saw an article one day and nearly all players agreed that ythere was a double system on that rule, and they felt bad/angry about it.

Alex999

10-09-2012 04:33 PM

Re: Tsonga: Referees always favor top 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adri89
(Post 12471860)

Tsonga is just angry about a call during the TB of the Pekin's final.
He said that against Djokovic "his level isn't good enough" to beat him.
I don't think it is an excuse for him, just he doesn't like to lose, and you just can understand this behaviour from champions. Those guys want to be the best, and it's hard to acknowledge that you find better than you.

Tsonga seems right about one point though : if an influent player doesn't like an umpire, it's harder for his career, to be in the big matchs.

I watched the match, Novak's challenges were all spot on. Sure, nobody likes to lose, but Tsonga was an inferior player in that match. Tsonga seems to be too bitter for no reason really.

duong

10-09-2012 04:38 PM

Re: Tsonga: Referees always favor top 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by hyperren
(Post 12471845)

...it's starting to look like Tsonga is looking at every possible excuse for why he's not doing any better than Top 5 or 6 (I remember that "other players are playing more smaller tournaments" excuse a couple of months back). Any excuse apart from admitting he's not playing well enough or consistently enough to get the points or the wins.

no no no that's typical MTF reaction but that's completely un-spot-on : after the match in Beijing, Tsonga also said that Djokovic clearly put the bar too high for him in that match, he even said that it was harder against Djokovic than against the rest of the big-4 because when he played a good point, he could win the point against the rest of the big-4 but not against Djokovic - I think he clearly referred to the first breakpoint which Djokovic saved with a superb lob after an incredible rally and which, according to Tsonga's own words, affected his confidence.

And Tsonga's reaction about that point was not after the loss but precisely at the moment when the point happened do'nt you remember how much he complained to Lahyani ?

Besides, about the "other players playing more smaller tournaments", if you read the original interview, it was not him who took the initiative to talk on that topic, he was asked whether maybe he was playing too much, and he just answered "no no I have no choice anyway because ..." : it was not a complaint at all, just an explanation for his schedule (later the French media asked him to precise who he was referring more precisely and he mentioned his main threat for the WTF, that is Tipsarevic).

You can think Tsonga is wrong and talk about other issues of that topic, but referring to him as a bad loser here is a complete mistake : he just has that opinion, whether he's right or not, and he's said it twice.

Alex999

10-09-2012 04:54 PM

Re: Tsonga: Referees always favor top 4

Duong, I don't think Tsonga is a bad loser per se and I like your last post/analysis. However, for some reason or another, he tends to 'talk too much' sometimes and finds too many excuses for himself. he should let his racket do the talking and he should be focusing on his own game. He also tends to be very easily provoked by journalists.

The Fearhand

10-09-2012 05:04 PM

Re: Tsonga: Referees always favor top 4

The impact of a referee on the result of a tennis match is slim to none.
There are some sports like soccer where a referee's impact could be deadly and 1 bad call can result in an instant loss for the rest of a match or handicap you for the rest of a match. That's not the same for Tennis.

And Tsonga might be right but he's not the one to talk. If he plays against the lower classed players he receives the same treatment too. Sadly that's how sports is. Wether it's soccer, basketball, tennis or any other sport the best players-teams always get special treatment.

finishingmove

10-09-2012 05:04 PM

Re: Tsonga: Referees always favor top 4

I also thought they do.

duong

10-09-2012 05:07 PM

Re: Tsonga: Referees always favor top 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex999
(Post 12471920)

Duong, I don't think Tsonga is a bad loser per se and I like your last post/analysis. However, for some reason or another, he tends to 'talk too much' sometimes and finds too many excuses for himself. he should let his racket do the talking and he should be focusing on his own game. He also tends to be very easily provoked by journalists.

Tsonga is just sincere, he says his mind : when he says that, he doesn't think "well that's how people are going to think about that on MTF, I shouldn't tell it".

Personally I like that rather than giving "politically correct answers" all the time.

I know I disagree with many people about that, but personally I agree with Federer, that the only way to be natural and sincere is just not to think about the reactions you will get, just say your mind. Tsonga like Federer (but with less constraints than him) prefers living in this more simple way, just staying natural, and I understand him.

It's better for him anyway.

Is it better for the environment ? Some people don't judge it this way on MTF, I disagree with that generally speaking although in some peculiar cases I understand.

And anyway most people know that Tsonga is actually a nice guy, the people who have met him and other French players from very near say that he's the nicest French player by far.

Puschkin

10-09-2012 05:09 PM

Re: Tsonga: Referees always favor top 4

So it is the referee's fault that Tsonga has not beaten a single top 10 player this year. :haha: What a jerk. :rolleyes:

duong

10-09-2012 05:15 PM

Re: Tsonga: Referees always favor top 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puschkin
(Post 12471945)

So it is the referee's fault that Tsonga has not beaten a single top 10 player this year. :haha: What a jerk. :rolleyes:

not at all, it was just one point extracted from his interview, not at all the main one.